Modeling hydration kinetics of sustainable cementitious binders using an advanced nucleation and growth approach

Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are utilized to partially substitute Portland cement (PC) in binders, reducing carbon-footprint and maintaining excellent performance. Nonetheless, predicting the hydration kinetics of [PC + SCM] binders is challenging for current analytical models due to the extensive diversity of chemical compositions and molecular structures present in both SCMs and PC. This study develops an advanced phase boundary nucleation and growth (pBNG) model to yield a priori predictions of hydration kinetics—i.e., time-resolved exothermic heat release profiles—of [PC + SCM] binders. The advanced pBNG model integrates artificial intelligence as an add-on, enabling it to accurately simulate hydration kinetics for [PC + SCM] binders. This study utilizes a database that includes calorimetry profiles of 710 [PC + SCM] binders, encompassing a diverse range of commonly-used SCMs as well as both commercial and synthetic PCs. The results show that the advanced pBNG model predicts the heat evolution profiles of [PC + SCM] in a high-fidelity manner.